


Colors

by icarusty (icanthinkofausername)



Category: A Heist With Markiplier (Web Series), Markiplier TV (Web Series), Unus Annus - Fandom, Who Killed Markiplier? (Web Series)
Genre: Afterlife, Death, Gen, I do not know what I am doing, Like, Lots of it, No Plot, No Smut, Revenge, Short, Sort Of, Time Travel, Unus and Annus are gods, it's wkm what do you expect, kind of, some violence, tw suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-12 07:20:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29256585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icanthinkofausername/pseuds/icarusty
Summary: “Defend yourself,” supplied Annus, spreading his hands in a gesture of welcoming, before they went back to that pretentious position in front of him. “In front of the court.”Mark shook his head as he stumbled backwards, holding on desperately to the lifeline that this wasn’t real as he attempted to collect himself. “I-I don’t know my charges,” he said feebly, words barely there."That's too bad," drawled Wilford, fiddling with a knife that hadn't been there before."Really," laughed the Author, leaning on his bat. His smile was less teasing, as he probably had intended it to be, and more homicidal maniac. "A downright shame."(I suck at summaries. It's a Mark meets the Egos and they're mad fic.)COMPLETED
Comments: 2
Kudos: 32





	1. Chapter 1

Annus had known for a while something was wrong. Well, obviously, he was _dead (gone, away, but not forgotten)_ , but… he’d planned for that. He’d known that was coming, that was the whole point. He hadn’t planned for after, hadn’t planned on the powers that came with being the god of time. It had been a learning curve, but that wasn’t what was wrong. Time ticked, as always, but Annus knew something else, something new, was wrong.

When he told Unus, he laughed, calling Annus a paranoid old fool. Until Annus pointed out the facts, put together a chart explaining the phenomenon he’d noticed. Unus and Annus had always liked charts. 

So Annus made another plan, at Unus's encouragement. Plans were reliable, one thing falling in place after the next, blocks of time on a calendar. Unus liked unpredictability, the rise and fall of life and death, action and excitement. Annus liked slow inevitability, the never-ending wait. 

So here, in this white not-a-room, Annus sat in his white not-a-chair and folded his white not-hands. 

And waited. 

The clock was ticking. 

Author (writer, worldmaker, wretched and wrecked) knew he was going to die. A few drinks and a line of thought too tempting to ignore, and he’d been at his desk again, head bowed over his paper, scratching furiously. He’d written his death perfect as he could, in a flurry of ink and crumpled paper. Once he was done, he’d leaned back in his chair, satisfied and panting. It was done. He could be done, he could be free to sink into that welcoming blackness like sleep, only he wouldn’t ever have to wake up. One more day, go out in style and he’d be done. Author fell asleep in his chair, too tired to edit what he’d written. 

In his exhaustion and relief, he hadn’t realised he’d written one more paragraph after his own ending. An epilogue, of sorts. 

_After the Author died his perfectly written ending, black blissfully taking him, something happened. Something he hadn’t planned for. White. White, on that black, a sort of swirl, until the white overtook the black. That was wrong. Wrong. Author gasped._

Author gasped, hands jolting awake on the table in front of him. He blinked, looking at his hands, a stark color against the pure, blinding, snow-white of the table. 

“Hello,” murmured a voice, _his_ voice. Author’s eyes snapped up to the man sitting across the table, pretentious white suit and all. Author blinked. It was _him_ . It was _him_ , sitting across from the table. The man who looked like the Author folded his hands in front of him, fingertips pressed against each other. 

“Who are you?” snapped the Author. “And where am I?”

The man smiled, a kind, though strangely pitying smile. “All valid questions, which will be answered… in time.”

“What the fuck? Let me go,” spat the Author, moving to rise from his seat at the table. Author frowned when he realised he couldn’t, couldn’t move an inch from his white, cushioned chair. Author struggled anyway, twisting this way and that to the apparent amusement of his doppelganger. “What is this?” he spluttered finally, when his stubborn side gave in.

The man who looked like Author made an exasperated sound. “Fine,” he sighed, leaning back a little. “You’re dead, Author. Or don’t you remember?”

Author blinked. He… he did remember. How did he forget that black welcome, that perfect ending he’d written… “This isn’t what I wrote,” he whispered, mind short-circuiting as he tried to remember the last time something had happened to him he hadn’t written. He’d written his whole life, everything, even his death. He’d just assumed nothing came after. This was…

“You’re free from your torture, Author,” said his twin quietly. “But not free from me.”

“What do you--”

“Wait. Be patient,” urged the man in white, leaning his head on the back of his tall, elegant, crystal-white chair. “There are others coming.”

Somewhere in this pure white room, the Author heard a clock ticking. 

The Host (omnipotent, ineffable, incomplete) wished to die every goddamn day, and it never goddamn came. Death would be like a sweet kiss, a gentle wave into blissful oblivion. Alas, the Host was doomed to his little prison of always knowing what was coming next. Of course, he didn’t know everything. Just where the camera was aimed at. Knew what was important by what he could see. 

“The Host continues to talk, as he always does, despite how tired he is,” he muttered into his mic, clutching it like a lifeline. Suddenly-- “The Host… the Host feels a pain in his chest,” the Host grunted out, curling over. “The Host begins to realise what a heart attack feels li--”

Maybe finally trying to get drunk was a mistake. Or maybe it was the best decision of his admittedly short life.

Black, black, black, crowded into his vision. Black, black, black, until-

“The Host found himself in a white room,” he found himself saying, uncharacteristically panicked, as the pain suddenly went away, a table forming under his hands. Clean, smooth, like a particularly nice piece of marble. “The Author was startled, Annus was not. Annus looked over at the Host with a bemused smile on his face, before the Host’s habit began to annoy him, and he said--”

“You can stop that now,” murmured his own voice. 

The Host stayed quiet, trying to calm his quietly reeling brain. Where was he? He had never wished for true sight more in his life. Wanted to know _who_ Annus and the Author were, didn't want to just know they were there. 

"Who's this wacko?" hissed the Author. The Host didn't know how he knew how to tell them apart, given how they all sounded exactly the same. 

"The Host," replied Annus calmly. "I believe you two… are related, somehow. Haven't quite figured it out yet."

"What?" growled the Author, and Host saw his fingers tightening on the beat-up armrests of his chair. "Wh--" 

"Shh," whispered Annus, and Host shivered. "Wait. Be patient. There are others coming." 

A clock began to tick. 

Obviously, Wilford (the Colonel) was going to die. Like, it was gonna happen. Someday. He hadn’t really thought about it all that much, just kind of… ignored it, really. Distracted himself with bubblegum and disco and pastels and the game and guns and knives and blood… fun stuff. 

But dying didn’t really matter. He’d just wake back up again, like the district attorney. And everyone else. Dying was just a part of life, like going out for ice cream or killing someone. Everyone did it. 

So Wilford danced through the world, danced in and out of various people’s lives, often leaving a bloodstained trail behind, and didn’t give a fuck. Well, sometimes he gave fucks. 

He might even give you a fuck, if you’d be down for that…

Anyway. Wilford was a whirlwind, never quite settled down long enough for someone to finally do the deed and murder him. So it was quite a surprise when he finally died. Wasn’t a shot to the heart, as would have been fitting, but rather… huh. He’d done it himself. Strange, he hadn’t thought… oh yes. He’d figured it out, figured out what the game was, why nobody would open their eyes after he killed them. They obviously were waiting for Wilford to do the same, so they could wake up together. 

Wilford woke up, as was expected, but he wasn’t… he wasn’t where he’d been, lying on the floor with that picture of Damien and Celine he’d kept all those years. A white table lay in front of him, with three expectant men sitting across from him. One had a blindfold, one had a white suit and white eyes, and the other… well, the other looked normal as one could, sitting in a room with three doppelgangers. Wilford, uncharacteristically, was silent for a moment. “So,” he started eventually, twiddling his thumbs. “I am Wilford Warfstache, and I am an alcoholic,” he said solemnly. 

The one in the white suit, unexpectedly, snorted into his sleeve. Clearing his throat, he composed himself. “Yes,” he said, serious once again. “Introductions. I’m Annus.” 

Wilford inwardly giggled. 

“This is the Host,” Annus continued obliviously, gesturing smoothly to the man to his left, “and this is the Author.” The man to his right waved a little before folding his arms again. 

“I would say it’s nice to meet you, but I’m afraid I’m dead,” said Wilford, twirling his mustache.

The Author raised a brow. “Yeah, buddy. We’re all dead.”

“The camera pans over to the Host, who is slightly wary of this newcomer, given how his mustache seems to be an alarming shade of…”

Annus cut him off with a gesture. “Shh. Wait. Be patient. Others are coming.”

_Tick tock. Tick tock._

Marc (an actor, a hero, a _hero,_ yes) escaped. It worked, he’d pulled it off, all by himself. Run away before those goddamn idiots even knew what happened, left Damien to his misery in Marc’s old body. Jesus, it had almost been easy, like someone had been whispering instructions into his ear… but he didn’t think about that now. Only thought about the new life he was going to lead, free from those shackles that the thought of revenge had clamped onto him. 

So Marc lived. A little haunted, to be sure. He had nightmares, but he shook them off, telling himself every brave survivor had PTSD. 

Then Marc didn’t live. 

Then Marc only saw black. Black, black, black, seeping into his very bones, ink and dust and shadow, texture like velvet. Strange, he thought he heard a voice… 

_“You sure you want this one, Annus?”_

_“He’s important.”_

_“Hm. I liked King of the Squirrels better.”_

_“You’re an idiot. Give him here.”_

White. White, white, white, clean and bright and blinding, smooth like marble and cold as ice, pure and sharp. “What is this?” he said, head snapping up to glare at the people at the table. Startled, he realised his own face was staring at him from three directions. 

“My name is Annus,” said the one in white, smiling a little in reassurance. 

“I’m the Author,” supplied the one in the black t-shirt. Of all casual things. 

“The Host introduces himself,” muttered the last one, bloody blindfold giving nothing away. 

Marc squinted. “What?” he said. 

“He does that,” sighed the Author. 

“What is this place?” marvelled Marc, looking around. “I…”

“It’s sort of…” Annus trailed off, looking around himself. Marc started when he realised Annus’s eyes had no pupil, or iris. Pure white. “Think of it as a pit stop between the land of the living and your regularly scheduled afterlife.”

Marc huffed. “Then why am I here?”

“Shh…” Annus leaned back, folding his hands in front of him. “All in due time. For now… wait. Be patient. Others are coming.”

Marc heard a clock. 

Death.

Meh.

Damien (Celine, the manor, and Damien) knew there were worse things. Knew there was torture and betrayal and horrible, wrenching pains in life that death couldn’t hold a candle to. LIke being trapped in here with that glow, the blue and the red, the glitching madness Damien could barely control. He’d never looked forward to the prospect of death, always knowing there was something more he could do before the black took him, but it was a sort of comfort. Dying was always an option, if it was ever too much. 

Damien supposed that was a little nihilistic, but really, it didn’t make him sad. Death came for everyone. It was just a matter of waiting before it came for him. 

Well, maybe he didn’t have to wait that long. 

The black was deep, and never-ending. He’d thought death would be like when you went to sleep, a blindfold over your eyes. It wasn’t. It was a huge, expansive room, so tall and so wide Damien felt insignificant. That was amazing, feeling small. He felt himself leaving his body, he’d felt that before, but now it was out of his control. For a second, Damien saw something strange. Another person, pale skin and a black suit, somewhere out in the black. 

Then blinding white. 

Damien blinked, hands instinctively clenched into fists on the perfectly circular table. He looked around, and was met by his own face. Every seat was filled, every seat looking expectantly at him. “What is this?” he growled, voice grating in his throat. 

The man directly across from him smiled, hands folding onto the white table. “My name is Annus. This is the Author, the Host, Wilford, who I believe you already know, and--”

“You,” said Damien, felt himself flicker a little. The entity was still inside him, though it was reeling as much as Damien. “You.”

“Me,” said Marc, spreading his hands and smiling that damn little smirk. Damien pushed himself out of the chair, or tried to. He couldn’t. Marc huffed. “You can’t leave. I don’t know what he’s done to us, but you can’t.”

Damien growled his hatred, knuckles whitening on the armrests of his chair.

“Even I can’t,” supplied Wilford with a sigh, leaning back. He put his feet on the table, distracting himself with a lollipop he seemed to have pulled out of his hair. Damien swallowed, looking away from Wilford. He couldn’t bear to see his friend so… broken, like that. Even as Wilford shot him a vaguely provocative wink. 

Annus cleared his throat. “Shh,” he said, making a placating gesture. 

The Author threw up his hands. “Yes, _yes._ We know! Wait, be patient, others are coming…”

“Actually,” said the Host, matter-of-factly. “The last chair had been filled.”

Damien’s eyes narrowed. “How in the world do you know that?”

Host fidgeted. 

“He sees everything,” sighed the man Annus had introduced as the Author. “Like in third person. I don't know. He’s the narrator.”

“And how do you know that?” snapped Damien, folding his hands in front of him. He felt his glitch get sharper, the blue against the red. 

“He told me,” said the Author, sullen and bored, eyes flickering over the table. “We’ve had lots of time to chat, waiting for you.”

“The camera cuts to a shot of Marc, who was wondering, if he was dead, where Celine--”

“Don’t,” snapped Marc, and Damien saw his anger, that red-hot jealousy, burning up inside of him. Damien hated Marc with a passion, but he’d never understood him well enough to know what fueled that burning, corrosive desire for revenge. Marc was a very different man than Damien. “Don’t speak of her,” Marc ordered, eyes scanning over the gathered men imperiously. Only Damien and Annus were apathetic. 

Annus sighed, and Damien realised with a start that Annus’s eyes were completely white, as white as the room itself. “I’ve gathered you here today,” he started, voice echoing. “To discuss a… phenomenon. It involves each of us.”

“Spit it out,” sighed Marc, dramatic as always. 

Annus stood, fingertips pressed together in front of him. “What do you remember of your childhood?” he asked softly. A pause. Damien’s eyes narrowed. Annus looked expectantly to his left, where the man with the blindfold sat. “Host?”

“The Host elects not to reply, wondering where this line of questioning has gone,” muttered the Host. Damien saw a drip of blood slip down his cheek, leading Damien to wonder what was happening beneath that cloth. 

“Author?” murmured Annus, looking down to his right. 

Author shrugged, arms folded as he slouched back into his chair. “I dunno. Playgrounds. School.”

“ _Which_ school?” stressed Annus, calm and collected. 

“Um…” sighed Author, rolling his eyes a little. Author swallowed, brow furrowing in slow confusion. “I…”

“Wilford?” said Annus, turning his head to peer at the mustached man. 

“I know what you’re doing,” said Wilford with a sigh, licking his inexplicable lollipop sloppily. “And you don’t need to convince me, Annus. I’ve… I’ve pretty much known from the start why I’m here.”

“That’s both worrying and reassuring,” said Annus, though he didn’t sound worried or reassured. Just sort of… calm. “Marc?”

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” snapped Damien’s enemy, folding his arms across his bloodstained chest, red blood on a red robe. Red, red, red… Damien saw red every time he looked at Marc. “I know exactly who I am.”

“Yes,” murmured the ever-calm Annus. “You’re an actor. What’s beyond that, however?”

“What?”

Annus turned more fully, something sharp and cold in his blank face. “I know you remember the manor, but… what was your first pet? State of birth? Mother’s name? Father’s name?”

“Tully the cat, Wyoming, Alexandra, Dave,” snapped Marc, eyes wild. Damien knew he was lying, knew he didn’t have a clue. Damien knew Marc hated the power Annus, whoever he was, had here, and Damien knew Marc would lie his way out of anything he felt uncomfortable with. Entitled bastard. Thought he was the hero of the… the hero of the… _the hero of the story._

Damien began to laugh. He hadn’t laughed in… in so long. All those trees, all those years in the dream, he hadn’t laughed once. And certainly he hadn’t laughed since then. Marc’s eyes snapped to him, narrowed and shaken. God, how had Damien not realised it before, what Annus was getting at? “Jesus,” sighed Damien between chuckles, the low sound of his voice echoing in his shadow. “We’re not real. We’re… it’s all a goddamn… we’re not real.”

“Not real?” said Marc, voice a strange mixture of a scream and a whisper. Incredulous, slightly scared… that was the way Damien wanted him. The moment before defeat. 

Wilford let out a little giggle, taking his feet off the table. “In a way,” he sighed, grinning a deranged grin. “Think of it this way. Host? He’s the camera. Author’s the screenwriter.”

“And us?” asked Marc, a bit apprehensive. 

Damien chuckled, pleased at having figured it out. “We’re all the antagonists.”

“No,” snapped Marc, pointing to himself. “No way in hell. I’m the protagonist.”

“Like hell,” snapped Damien. “You shouldn’t have to make anybody the villain to be a hero.”

“That’s how life _works_ ,” spat Marc, hands tightening on the rounded edge of the table. “Villains and heroes. I didn’t want to be a villain, so I made you one. Fair is fair.”

“Calm down,” murmured Annus, just a bit amused. 

“No!” shouted Marc, practically trembling with rage. On some level, Damien understood that reaction, that visceral flinching against the prospect all along you’d been under someone else’s thumb, but Damien had already gone through that once. Wasn’t too big a deal, once your life had been turned upside-down once before. And to be honest, he’d known something was off. His story had felt too much… like a story. A puppet-show. Marc clearly wasn’t taking it as well as Damien was. “No,” he said again, pointing a shaking finger at the white-clothed man called Annus. “Who are you?”

“Annus,” replied Annus amicably. 

Marc shook his head violently. “No. Tell me more. How… how--”

“I lived for one year,” began Annus, with the air of one telling a bedtime story. “Knowing I would die at the end. I did everything I wanted to, and did some things I didn’t,” he added with a chuckle. “Then, when I died, I… I don’t know. Somehow I became a sort of god. Though not really.”

“An angel?” suggested the Author, who up until now had just looked sullen and bored. 

Annus pursed his lips, thinking. “Something like that. Yes. Thank you, Author, for having the words. I am the angel of time, and a friend of mine was made angel of death.”

“A friend of yours?” parroted the Author, raising a brow. 

“Unus,” Annus said with the barest hint of a fond smile. “Yes. He, however, doesn’t really matter in this particular story.”

“Who does?” asked Damien, glitch flickering blue and red. 

Annus straightened, hands instinctively going back to that position in front of him. He looked out of his collection of stories, characters come to life. “We do.”

The clock stopped.


	2. Chapter 2

Annus was good at explaining things, Damien had to give him that. Within half an hour (or something like that, he was pretty sure time didn’t exist here) everyone understood most of what had happened to them. A man, something called a youtuber, had made them through his videos. Somehow.

“So… this man. This…” Damien frowned around the silly name. “Markiplier. He created us?”

“Indiverdently, yes,” murmured Annus. “I don’t think he intended us to be, well…”

“Real,” muttered the Author. “Yeah. I’ve got some experience with that.”

Marc seemed to be taking it the hardest, head in his hands. “So all that work,” he whispered, and Damien felt a hidden rush of glee, the entity inside of him bubbling with wicked satisfaction. “For  _ nothing. _ ”

Damien cleared his throat. “Why does this matter?”

“Because I thought it fair to give us a chance to meet him,” said Annus. 

“Meet him,” said Marc slowly, bringing his face out of his hands. “And then beat the shit out of him.”

“Yes,” agreed the Author vehemently, and Damien saw a hidden rush of sadistic vengeance run through his eyes. It was strange, seeing his own face so enraptured by emotions he’d tried so hard to avoid. 

“I say we go knife, knife, gun, knife, knife, then maybe something with rope,” drawled Wilford with that terrifying casualness. Damien smiled, privately agreeing. 

“We’ll see,” murmured Annus. “He might have reasoning.”

“Screw reasoning,” drawled Wilford, eyes meeting Damien’s. For a second, Damien thought he saw a glimmer of the Colonel inside, but then Wilford broke eye contact and the insanity slipped back on. 

“How would they get there?” said the Host thoughtfully. “None of them had bodies.”

Annus began to smile, a strange sight on his normally blank face. “I know a guy.”

Unus was strange. That was all Author thought of him. He had opened a black door in that white room, just an empty space that hadn’t been there before, startling the gathered men. The angel of death had smiled and clapped his hands together excitedly, like a child. Very strange, almost jarring after watching Annus’s formal behavior for so long. 

Annus had just smiled amusedly. “You’re sure you can do this?” he asked, concerned in a rather parental way. 

“‘Course,” said Unus in a breezy way, though his nervous smile betrayed him. “You’ve all got the same body, ish… all I gotta do is kill this Markiplier dude for a couple seconds, put you in his brain or something in there, and then let you talk for a minute, pull you out when I have to, and then revive him.”

“Not that hard,” said Annus dryly. “Just some light resurrection.”

Unus scoffed, shaking out his hands. “That’s practically our day job, Annus.”

Author, in all his words, couldn’t think of an accurate one to describe the energy coming from Unus’s eyes as he took a deep breath in. Dark, velvety, deep like a pool. There were no reflections, no shiny highlights even in the blinding white of Annus’s room, just a deep absence of color. Author leaned in to look closer, despite himself. The black raised like smoke, diverged into strands, reaching towards each of the gathered men. It should have been terrifying, and Author saw some apprehension in his peers as the strands of darkness sighed towards their eyes, but Author was nothing but intrigued. He'd always been like that. Too curious for his own good.

Black enveloped his vision, and the white was no more. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this might be a revenge fic um

“Okay, bye!” said Mark as Amy waltzed out of the door, out to meet up with some of her school friends. Mark sighed, leaning against the counter. He still had recording to do, despite the late hour. At least it was something fun this time around, a new one Sean had sent him a couple weeks ago, an indie cowboy game he’d been dying to try out. 

Still, it was work. Mark loved his job, and people were always saying to make your hobbies your career, but sometimes he just felt like everything he did was work. Video games, Unus Annus, Amy sometimes, even his writing… on the upside, Heist 2 was almost done, so he could go back to writing fun stuff soon. 

Mark trudged up the stairs, a strange shiver running up his spine. He’d thought he’d turned the heater on. Fuck, did Amy change it again? She was like a goddamn furnace, wearing nothing but a tank top while Mark bundled up in sweaters. It was awesome for snuggling, though. 

Mark swiped the dust off the top of his monitor and loaded up steam, checking his mic with a few taps. He frowned, peering at his fingers. Dried blood? Probably from some batshit crazy UA video he’d forgotten about. 

When he turned his camera on, fully prepared to launch into his intro, the video feed was black. Mark glanced up to the camera, smiling when he found the source of the problem. 

A white sticky note, with a little scribbled mustache in pink highlighter. His first thought was Amy until he read the description. _Markiplier frowned._

Markiplier frowned. He tore the sticky note off his camera, turned it around once. _Weird._

Mark glanced up at the camera.

Reality tore into two. 

Then two again. 

Then two again. 

And again. 

Again. 

Mark knew this sequence, had edited this himself using some two-dollar edit patch. Blue and red on black, blue and red shifting and moving, sending Mark into a blind panic as he tried to hold onto something. Before he even knew what was happening, Mark lost all sense of touch or direction, a sharp feeling like static electricity flooding his senses. 

Eventually, he emerged, gasping and stumbling, into an empty, echoing void. He put a hand to his heart, head snapping around as he tried to get a bearing on his surroundings. “What is this?” he shouted, head pounding. 

“Hello,” said a voice, said _his_ voice. Mark blinked in horror when, in front of him, a man appeared, dissolving into existence. He looked like… no, it couldn’t be.

“Markiplier!” drawled someone behind him, and Mark turned to spot…

“Wilford?” he spluttered. Wilford Warfstache, the character he’d created half-drunk on growing fame and sleep deprivation. “I must be… did I fall asleep at the computer?” Mark mumbled, holding his head. 

“Afraid not,” said a calm voice somewhere to his left. Mark didn’t raise his head to look, didn’t want to feed his overactive imagination. He must be dehydrated, maybe he didn’t eat enough today?

Someone else flickered into existence, he could feel the presence of another lookalike to his left. “Markiplier,” they mused. “I suppose it makes sense. Darkiplier and all that.”

He shook his head, violently. “This isn’t--”

“Real?” said another presence. “Yeah,” he scoffed. “Just like we’re not real.”

“You’re not,” Mark insisted.

“The Host begs to differ,” interjected a silky-smooth radio announcer’s voice. _His_ voice.

Mark felt a hand on his shoulder, and his head snapped up. He put his hands up in some vague boxing position, but he was surrounded by himself. Darkiplier, the Actor, Wilford, Author, Host, and Annus. Annus’s hand was so real on his shoulder, so Mark tore away, stumbling back.

“Let’s get him,” growled the Actor, moving forward as Mark whipped from person to person, confused and terrified, head full of contradictions. 

Wilford put out a hand. “Now, now. Let’s not be too hasty.”

“It’s what we agreed,” hissed the Author, and Mark spun around at the sound of his voice, hands still held up defensively. This was too much. Mark’s eyes darted around wildly from entity to entity, watching them watching him. Wilford looked vaguely amused, like someone watching an animal at the zoo. The rest just looked angry or impassive, and that was equally as terrifying. _This isn’t real, this isn’t real, this isn’t real--_

“We get him, and we make him _pay,_ ” hissed the Actor. Mark could see red on his clothes.

“I said we’d give him a chance to explain himself first,” murmured Annus, a stark white against the black of the glitching void around them. “So? Markiplier?”

“What?” whispered Mark, feet stumbling as he looked at each of himself. 

“Defend yourself,” supplied Annus. “In front of the court. The council. The defendants.”

Mark shook his head, holding on desperately to the lifeline that this wasn’t real as he attempted to collect himself. “I-I don’t know my charges,” he said feebly. 

"That's too bad," drawled Wilford, fiddling with a knife that hadn't been there before.

"Really," laughed the Author, leaning on his bat. His smile was less teasing, as he probably had intended it to be, and more homicidal maniac. "A downright shame."

Mark swallowed, eyes flicking between Author and Wilford, who seemed to be the trigger-happiest of the assembled crowd. God, they weren't the court, council or defendants. They were the judge, jury and executioners.

“You took the Host’s eyes,” supplied the Host, anger and long-simmering hatred into his voice. “Forced him to be watching, helpless, as others carried out their stories, never having a story of his own, only a bit part. All that potential, all _my_ potential. Wasted.”

The Author let out an animalistic growl, and swung his bat over his shoulder in a suprisingly menacing way. “The same for me. Took away my passion, the stories I wrote suddenly having consequences. I couldn’t goddamn live with that, live with every story I ever wrote backfiring. Why couldn’t you just let me be normal?” 

Mark swallowed, mouth agape. 

“You drove me insane,” drawled Wilford, inspecting his fingernails, which were inexplicably painted pink. Oh, no, wait. Some of them were splotched with red. “But that’s not the worst of it. You hurt Celine and Damien, and Marc in the process. I don’t care about me, never have,” he spat. “You hurt _them,_ ” he growled slowly, so his strange drawling accent Mark had come up with in a fit of creativity was even more pronounced. 

“I--”

“You trapped me,” growled Darkiplier, voice low and echoing. “For years. Kept me chopping trees, all for nothing, because you were the one to write my ending. You made sure I was in pain, every step of the way.”

“You fucked with me,” said the Actor, clipped and short. His back was straight, his eyes piercing. “Made me what I am in every sense and then made me a monster.”

Mark swallowed, stood up straight. “I didn’t know,” he said slowly, pronouncing each of the words with deliberate care.

“Is that your defense?” said Author, hissed it, almost. “It’s not good enough.”

They moved forward, almost in unison. Mark put out his hands in defense. “Woah, woah, woah!” he cried. They waited. “Author,” he said, almost desperately. “You should know better than anyone that I didn’t know, that I didn’t _want_ any of this to happen.”

“Like hell. You scripted everything, directed us, produced us, you were the maker and breaker of our lives,” Author snapped, the rant lighting his eyes with anger. 

“But--But I didn’t intend for you to be real!” Mark protested. “Like--like Darkiplier--”

“My name is Damien.”

“Damien, then,” Mark quickly corrected, panic bleeding into his voice. His mind reeled when he thought too hard about his own characters having opinions on things. “Damien, you know I just do these things for content, for money, just an outlet for my creativity that happens to be my job.”

“So?”

“So, my flaw here is that I-I’m a self-centered asshole, not that I’m maliciously fucking around with people’s lives,” Mark argued. 

The Author and the Actor glanced at each other, expressions unreadable but unmistakably forboding. 

“I say we kill him,” muttered Wilford.

“No!” Mark shouted, putting out a placating hand. “No. Hold on. Please. Annus, you must know that all I ever intended with you, at least, was to teach people to remember death and live the most of their lives. That’s good, right?”

Annus looked at the ground, seemingly contemplating something. “I… that was altruistic, though… you did kill me.”

“That was the point,” he panted, holding a hand out to the advancing Wilford. “You knew that was gonna happen.”

Annus took in a deep breath. “I concede the point,” he said, voice gravelly. 

“But you didn’t consent to be made,” argued Author, folding his arms and shooting Mark a glance so dark he was suddenly very certain this was real.

Mark cleared his throat. “Neither did I,” he said. “Nobody does, but we’re all stuck with the lots we got.”

“You could have written us better ones,” said WIlford sourly. “I for one hated that I couldn’t drink that damn martini.”

“I for one hated that my entire house became an entity that swallowed me and the DA whole,” snapped Damien, the words low and echoing in this black void. 

“Again, I didn’t know,” pleaded Mark desperately. 

The council looked at each other. Annus sighed. “That is true. We can’t charge him for doing something he had no control over.”

“The camera faded to the Host, who had nothing to say.”

Damien nodded towards the Host. “Like him. He can’t control what he’s doing.”

"I suppose," mumbled Wilford, the words a reluctant sigh. "But from now on."

Annus nodded. "From now on."

"You can't create any more," said the Author, viscious and sharp. The bat in his hands seemed to glitch for a second, startling Mark into a step backwards. 

"Any more?" asked Mark, puzzled and terrified. 

"No more characters. No more pain." The Actor swallowed, straightening his back. "No more heroes and villains. We've had enough."

"But--"

"Play your little video games," whispered Annus as they started to fade. "Make people laugh. Have fun with your friends. But above all, remember."

"Remember our pain."

\------

Mark fell to the floor, hands still over his eyes. He blinked blearily, gasping his relief at feeling the carpet beneath his hands, a solid, real thing. It had felt like a dream. _Yes. A dream. You never realise that you’re dreaming._ But… a little niggling doubt kept his heart rate elevated. Mark stumbled to his closet, fumbling with his phone as he whipped the door open. He dialed up Amy, then hesitated, then dialed up Sean, then Ethan, then Tyler, then his mom, then back to Amy again. Tried to figure out who would believe him, would even hear him out. Nobody would. They’d all assume it was some stunt done for publicity, to drag more lore out of Tumblr, but it wasn’t. 

But it wasn’t real. He’d just fallen asleep, had experienced a weird dream, so there was no reason to get panicked, right? Right. That was all.

They weren’t real. Fucking christ, they weren’t real. They weren’t real. Mark rifled through his closet, almost gasping with relief when he realised the white Annus suit was still there. Still there. Mark’s breath was coming in short, ragged pants as he held his head in his hands. Fucking christ. Mark picked himself up and dragged himself towards his computer, an idea lighting his tired, panic-fueled brain.

Mark loaded up the footage, one last-ditch attempt to reaffirm his belief that he’d just had a bad dream, to quell that uncomfortable feeling in his stomach. His fumbling fingers couldn’t type fast enough. When pulled up the footage, his eyes scanned for any sign of anything unusual besides him falling asleep at the computer for a couple seconds. Nothing strange, besides the fact that apparently Mark needed to drink more water or something. Mark swallowed, relief sliding through his body. 

_I knew it. Irrational, just need some sleep and-_ -

One frame. One frame went dark, just a little glitch. Mark felt a chill run down his spine. He played it again. There. Right when his eyes fluttered closed, a tiny little black frame flickered into existence. Slowly, dreading what he might find, Mark put it into a video editor and isolated the frame. He heard his heart hammering in his ears. 

Markiplier was smiling wide at the camera, finger to his lips. A white suit was splattered with blood, the pen in his left hand practically dripping with it. The glaringly pink mustache quirked upward with his smirk, blindfold covering the top half of his face, blue and red blurring his outline. Overwhelming, impossible. Mark gaped, panic rising up once again. _No, no, no--_

Mark scrubbed his hands over his face, hoping when he looked again it wouldn’t be there. It was. It didn’t exist, maybe he was still dreaming, dreaming that smile on his face, the blood over a suit he’d thought was tucked away in his closet. But it was still there. Mark felt sickness lurching up in his gut as he stared. Somehow the frame just felt wrong, felt like a little tear in his reality. “No, no, no, fuck, no…”

Mark turned, couldn’t look at it again. 

It was real. It was all real, his character’s pain and their dark promises. _What do I do? What do I do?_

Mark sunk to the floor, sitting with his head in his hands. He’d killed them, he’d tortured them and he hadn’t even known. But how? Didn’t really matter, did it? All that mattered was that somehow he’d made something strange, something terrible and dark. 

He’d made monsters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please please PLEASE leave comments, they give me so much life.


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